Joseph DeVries

"Dr DeVries, a citizen of the USA, began his career in Africa in 1986 as a United Nations volunteer building irrigated rice systems in drought-afflicted areas of West Africa’s northern Sahel region. In the late 1980s and early 1990s he delivered seed of staple food crops and technical assistance to Mozambican farmers trapped behind the front lines of the country’s civil war. He earned a PhD in plant breeding and genetics at Cornell University in 1994, after which he joined World Vision International as Director for Food Security in Africa, based in Accra, Ghana. In 1995, Dr DeVries became World Vision’s National Director for Liberia and Sierra Leone. In 1997, he joined The Rockefeller Foundation, where he developed a new initiative on genetic improvement of African crops and a farmer-responsive seed system. In 2006, he led a team that created the crop genetic improvement and seed systems development program, which subsequently became the first program of the newly formed AGRA."[1]